Urgent: I need a payment processor after my account was shut down

You got shut down. Today. Payroll Friday, subscription renewals tomorrow, ads still running and now burning budget on failed checkouts. This is the exact sequence that compresses the revenue loss from 2 weeks to 48 hours. It is boring and it works.

1. Hour 0-2: stop the bleed

Kill the ad campaigns driving traffic to a broken checkout — that spend is pure waste right now. Put a site banner up: "Payment temporarily unavailable — new checkout coming within 48 hours. Existing customers: your subscriptions are paused and we will reach out." Route the checkout button to a simple email-capture + "we will notify you" flow. Do not 500 the site.

2. Hour 2-6: triage what you are replacing

List everything the old processor did: cards, Apple Pay/Google Pay, subscription billing, dispute handling, fraud screening, tax reporting, vaulted cards. Your replacement stack must cover all of it, sometimes across multiple vendors. Gaps we see forgotten:

• Subscription billing engine (Chargebee / Recharge / custom) — needs new gateway connection.
• Apple Pay domain registration — must be re-done at the new gateway.
• Vaulted card migration — PCI-validated token transfer, start the request today.
• Chargeback alerts — Ethoca / Verifi — rewire.

3. Hour 6-24: spin up ACH as the bridge

ACH/bank debit keeps revenue flowing while card rails come online. Options live in 24-48 hours:

• GoCardless — fastest for subscription ACH, UK-based, works US.
• Stax — US-focused, flat-fee pricing.
• Plaid-powered ACH processors — Dwolla, ACHWorks.
• Branded bank rails — your existing bank's merchant ACH, sometimes fastest if you already have the relationship.

ACH converts at 40-60% of card-checkout rate but keeps subscription renewals alive and stops the zero-revenue hemorrhage.

4. Hour 24-48: apply to 2-3 vertical-specific ISOs in parallel

Your vertical determines the list:

• CBD / hemp: EasyPayDirect, PayKings, Corepay.
• Peptides / SARMs: EasyPayDirect, PayKings, Durango.
• Kratom: High Risk Pay, Soar, specialty kratom desks.
• Nutra / supplements: EasyPayDirect, Soar, Corepay.
• Vape / e-cig: Durango, Corepay (narrower book).
• Adult / dating: CCBill, Segpay, Paynetics.
• Firearms: Clearent, specialty firearms-friendly ISOs.
• Telemedicine / TRT: Corepay, specialty telehealth desks.

Apply to 2-3 in parallel, not in sequence. Underwriting takes 5-10 business days each; sequential applications burn 3 weeks.

5. The document package that speeds approval

Have ready before you submit:

• 3 months of processing statements from the closed account.
• EIN letter + articles of incorporation.
• Voided check for the bank account.
• Beneficial-owner ID (driver license).
• Current SKU list with descriptions, prices, and margins.
• Website URL in its current state (not a dev preview).
• Refund and chargeback policy links.
• 90-day forward volume forecast.
• Any relevant category documentation (COAs, licenses).

Clean document packages cut underwriting time in half.

6. Customer communication template

Send in the first 24 hours:

"Quick update: our payment processor ended our relationship this week. Your account and subscription are safe. No charge will hit your card until we are back online and you confirm re-authorization by email. We expect to be fully live within 48-72 hours. Questions: reply to this email."

This email outperforms silence by a large margin in customer retention post-migration.

7. The reserve from the old processor

You will not get it back quickly. Plan 90-120 days. Log disputes and refunds during the hold; Stripe, Square, and other payfacs occasionally miscategorize and you want clean records to argue final adjustments.

8. What not to do

• Do not open a new payfac (Stripe, Square) under a new EIN same-day. You will be re-closed within a week and your file gets worse.
• Do not apply to 10 ISOs at once — 5+ declines in 30 days gets you flagged as a pattern.
• Do not take a teaser rate ISO offer at 2.9% on a high-risk vertical. Read month-6 rate on the sheet.
• Do not fire your subscription billing engine — your customer data lives there. Migrate it to the new gateway instead.

9. If this is your second shutdown

Second closures usually mean the category + policy mismatch is structural. Either narrow the category to what low-risk processors allow, or commit to the high-risk lane and stop applying to Stripe/Square/PayPal forever. Multi-brand operators in this pattern often benefit from consolidating onto a parent MID with orchestrated sub-brands. Apply in 12 questions — honest answer in 48 hours.

Next step

If you are in hour 0 right now, this is the order: (1) ad pause + site banner, (2) ACH bridge application, (3) parallel ISO applications, (4) customer email. In that order. You can have revenue partially flowing inside 24 hours and fully flowing within 7-10 days if you execute tonight.